THE UNION HAS ONLY RECENTLY STARTED TO REPRESENT AND ORGANISE WORKERS IN THE PRIVATISED SECTION OF THE POSTAL INDUSTRY.

The union needs to work harder in this area. In the fi rst place it is clear that these workers urgently need representation. Many of them are totally ripped off.
The time-old maxim applies: AN INJURY TO ONE IS AN INJURY TO ALL.

The following two examples show why these members need our full support.

1. A subbie working for a parcel contractor engaged by Australia Post legally is an employee entitled to an award wage as a casual of $20.36 an hour under the Road Transport Distribution Award. However, this is what happens in practice – He gets a piece rate of $1.10 per parcels requiring a signature and $1.05 for a normal delivery. If he has a consignment to an address he then receives $1.05 for the first box of books, wine, paper or whatever and 20 cents for every other parcel delivered there.

He works a 15 hour day on Mondays, 11 ½ hours on Tuesday 12 ½ hour on Wednesday and 7 hours on each of Thursday and Friday – a 53 hour week and is lucky if he is paid $1,000 per week, out of which he has to pay for his own transport and fuel.

THIS IS SHAMEFUL IN A GOVERNMENT BUSINESS ENTERPRISE. Even the direct contractor is only paid $1.60 for delivering a WASHING-MACHINE!

THIS IS THE EXPLOITATION THAT THE MANAGING DIRECTOR PLANS TO BUILD THE HOPE OF AUSTRALIA POST – THE PARCEL NETWORK – ON.”

2. A member working for a LPO recently had her employment terminated at the end of her shift because she questioned the right of her manager to change her rostered hours. The member had been working full time casual for 7 years. The Manager had just bought the business and agreed to take on all existing staff and gave a commitment to keep working hours as they were under the previous owner.

After approximately 6 weeks working for the new employer the staff member was told that her hours were to be cut from 38 per week to 25 hours per week, with 3 days notice. At the end of that day she was given a letter of dismissal and 1 week’s pay.

The member contacted: CINDY SHELLEY, ONE OF THE RETAIL ORGANISERS.
Cindy took the case to Fair Work Australia for conciliation. Commissioner Roe expressed his opinion that the dismissal was unlawful and that the member was entitled to Long Service Leave pro rata
even though she was a casual as she had been employed for more than 7 years on a regular and predictable basis.

The result was the member was paid her Long Service Leave and compensation for the unlawful dismissal and was happy to leave her job for better work.

It is evident that we, as a union have done ourselves a disservice by not campaigning hard enough to set industry rates of pay for workers in the privatised sector. The cheap wages are behind management’s voracious appetite for contracting-out. Retail management don’t care less that they have been unable to locate premises to lease to house the Balwyn and Doncaster East Post Offices even though they have been highly profi table offices.

One has closed and another is facing closure on April1, 2011. Management prefer LPOs so they can rake in the same profit without any risk or responsibility. They don’t care that these jobs are at
inferior pay-rates – starting at $16.03 per hour as a trainee and $16.55 per hour as a Postal Services Officer as the Postal Services Industry Award is a minimum wage award. Staff employed directly by
Australia Post are paid $18.80 per hour as a trainee and $20.09 – S24.10 per hour as a Postal Services Officer depending on  their length of service.

The other vital issue that is important to workers is their job security. People working for individual Licensees have no job security for 12 months and this situation usually continues on as the Licensee rarely employs 15 people and therefore their employees do not have unfair dismissal rights. There are also issues relating to training, health and safety, transfer and career opportunities and the provision of relief staff.

The union has many examples of horrendous abuses of staff working in LPOs – one LPO owner did not pay people at all but gets people to come in for unpaid trials, another did not PROVIDE DRINKING WATER AND YET DID NOT ALLOW PEOPLE TO LEAVE THE COUNTER WHILE PEOPLE WERE QUEUED. LPOs also provide less service to the community.

They do not provide the full range of services, and there surely must be questions about providing individuals with the right to issue passports without proper checks and balances provided by Australia Post’s administration. They do not have the same interface with the rest of Australia Post so are unable to assist customers with issues in relation to delivery of mail and parcels or re-directions for example.

They have less security and have a far greater proportion of robberies and burglaries because of their inferior security provisions. Two weeks training (which is all that is required of a Licensee) cannot compare with the initial 3 months training and the extensive ongoing training provided for corporate Australia Post staff. This training applies to the Licensee only as none of the other staff have to have police checks or training. These are just some reasons why corporate offices are preferred by staff and the community.

Telstra and the CEPU, together with other Telstra unions, have initiated proceedings in Fair Work Australia (FWA) which will determine the future award safety net for Telstra employees.

As reported in previous E-bulletins, Telstra is seeking to replace its current enterprise awards with the general modernised industry award (the Telecommunications Services Award) while the unions are seeking a new enterprise-specific award which protects current entitlements.

An initial hearing was held in Fair Work Australia on 15th March before Vice President Lawler for the purposes of deciding how the two different applications should best be dealt with.

It was agreed by FWA that they would best be dealt with concurrently as far as that was possible and that the unions should have a further period of time to prepare a draft modern enterprise award before Telstra’s application was heard. In the meantime, Telstra is to finalise the evidence in support of its case.

A further hearing is scheduled for 29th April.

ONE HOUR & TWO HOUR SHIFTS IN RETAIL SERVICES
The union after many months of trying to get Retail Management to act on the problem of shifts that do not meet the 3 hour minimum shift has listed a test case in the Melbourne Magistrates Court for a breach. The union discovered that there were 3 one hour jobs in metropolitan Melbourne and many, many two hour shifts. This is a shameful state of affairs.

MELBOURNE PARCEL CENTRE
Again after many months of trying to reason with management about the excessive use of agency staff, unfair sharing of over-time and the need to create new permanent jobs to cope with the increase in work, we have listed these issues for conciliation in Fair Work Australia.

SEPARATE BUNDLE DELIVERY
Comcare are currently investigating this issue both in relation to motor-cycles and other modes of delivery.

WET WEATHER GEAR
Comcare are also investigating this matter following the issuing of a PIN in North Geelong / Corio. This PIN also relates to the lack of protective clothing while riding a motor-bike.

The Communications Division has applied to Fair Work Australia (FWA) for arbitration of a dispute with Telstra over the purchasing of extra annual leave.

One of the gains for employees made in the new Telstra Enterprise Agreement was the ability to purchase extra annual leave (Clause 25). But employees seeking to take up this new entitlement have been told by Telstra that they will not have the option of doing so this financial year – they’ll have to wait.

The CEPU of course believes that the entitlement should apply from the date the new agreement became operative.

The matter has been raised with Telstra at both state and national levels but not resolved so the CEPU has now taken it to FWA which, under the agreement, has the power to arbitrate when the internal disputes process has produced no result.

For its part, Telstra is arguing that, firstly, it has more discretion in relation to the purchase of leave than the CEPU claims and, secondly, that the internal dispute resolution procedure has not been fully complied with.

Telstra and the CEPU appeared before Commissioner Roe on 17 March. FWA has given the union until 23rd March to show how it has complied with the disputes procedure and Telstra has until the 30th to reply. FWA will then decide whether arbitration is appropriate.

AUSTRALIA POST MANAGEMENT TOOK THE OUTRAGEOUS POSITION OF NOT ALLOWING EMPLOYEES IN THE CUSTOMER CARE CENTRE TO USE THEIR PUBLIC HOLIDAY ENTITLEMENTS – ON LABOUR DAY 14 MARCH!

Last year, the Customer Care Centre allowed the voluntary staffi ng of the site. This year they tried to tell staff that they had to work. They maintained that only 48 workers of the 360 on site were to be allowed to use their basic public
holiday right. They even refused 7 people’s submission. This is just bully-boy tactics. The CCC has moved to a national structure with a Northern and a Southern centre.

The obvious solution was to switch calls to Queensland as they do not have their public holiday until 2 May. In an attempt to show that employees ‘must do what they are told’, the management (who come from a Telstra call centre) bullied more people than there was work for to attend work in Pinewood to do very little on 250% of their normal pay. No wonder the average stay by employees at the CCC is around 12 months!

The Union believes that the Enterprise Agreement provides that employees have a choice to work or not work on a public holiday.

To prevent being hassled employees should make it clear that they have family or childcare responsibilities on a public holiday. Otherwise, take your public holiday and if management try to penalise you the union can make an ‘adverse action’ claim in Fair Work Australia.

DISCUSSIONS HAVE BEEN SCHEDULED IN AN ATTEMPT TO FIND A FAIR AND JUST SYSTEM OF HANDLING
PUBLIC HOLIDAYS AT THE CCC IN THE FUTURE. LOCAL REPRESENTATIVES WILL BE INVITED TO ATTEND THESE DISCUSSIONS.

Telecommunications industry members have called for a delay in voting on crucial NBN legislation after 35 last minute amendments were introduced by the government on Wednesday 23rd March.

Both the government move and the industry reaction reflect ongoing uncertainties as to the scope of the NBN’s mandate and concerns about the implications of the project for both current telcos and competition policy generally.

A number of non-industry actors, notably electricity and other utilities, have been pushing strongly to be allowed to buy capacity directly from NBN Co without having to deal with a carrier intermediary.

The new amendments will let this occur, raising fears in the industry that this will be the thin edge of the wedge, allowing large corporates and government departments to do the same.

Related industry concerns about new “cherry picking” rules, designed to prevent carriers building new fixed network capacity in competition with NBN Co, have been partly addressed. The amendments will largely limit these rules to the residential market with the Minister given the further power to grant exemptions in “grey” areas.

But this green light to investment in corporate markets may provide cold comfort to carriers faced with the possibility of competing against NBN Co to supply market plums such as banks. NBN Co’s operations, as CEO Mike Quigley has repeatedly stressed, are not being placed on a fully commercial footing so the company will be well positioned to undercut competitors in such areas.

This is probably not quite the “level playing field” that the industry’s NBN advocates had envisaged.

The prospect of a revenue-hungry NBN Co extending its reach beyond minimalist Layer 2 operations and into the most profitable sectors of the end-user market is now clearly in view and a strong push back from industry can be expected.

After the death of your brother two months ago you visited the country
of your birth to console those relatives who were unable to fl y to Australia
for the funeral. You are still grieving and missing your family and are
having trouble concentrating whilst working in the retail section of the Melbourne GPO. You want to go home to consult a specialist about your respiratory problems and finalise some of your late brothers affairs, so you apply for urgent rec leave for two weeks stating these reasons.

You’ve worked for Post for many years so surely you will be shown some compassion. Wrong. Your leave application is knocked back on the grounds of business needs. Sick leave then. You’ve got an on-going respiratory complaint so on the 8th February your doctor writes out a certificate covering your planned absence and you fly out to your homeland.

A Flea at Human Resources uncrosses her hairy legs as she sits fuming at her desk. She feels that this worker has outwitted her. Fleas hate being outwitted and will resort to the dirtiest of tricks
to restore the balance of power. Sick leave certificate: what sick leave certificate?

On the 15th February the Flea rings your husband and asks him where you are because you haven’t turned up for work for four days. Amazed, because he knows that you not only posted a sick leave certificate to your manager but that you informed him orally of your intention to be away, your husband responds by saying that you are on leave overseas and will be back at work on 1st March. The Flea thanks your husband and smiles evilly as she puts down the phone. In her notes for a report that she will soon write she jots down: ‘husband says that his wife is holidaying overseas, and another reminder note: ‘send letter to worker on 28th Feb. demanding she return same day.’ She leans back in her chair, her eyes glinting, and crosses those hairy legs as if she is closing the case.

On 28th February, the very day you return from overseas, the Flea sends you that letter stating
that if you do not return to work on 28th February you will be deemed to have terminated your
position. Worse still. You do not receive this letter, and return to work on 1st March only to be told that you have been sacked. As you ride home in the train there is a hollow feeling in the pit of
your stomach but you’re not finished with yet. When you get home you ring the Union Secretary,
renowned Flea Fighter, Joan Doyle.

Joan is indignant and vigorously scratches her head as she composes a letter to the Flea at Human Resources. In it she includes a second doctor’s certificate that you have provided as well as proof that you never received the letter demanding your appearance on 28th February: a Photostat of the card to claim the letter from the Tarneit Post Offi ce dated 1st March and eventually received by you on the 3rd.

The Flea Fighter smiles as she ends her letter demanding that you be reinstated: “I would like to avoid the Board of Reference and Fair Work Australia if possible because this will portray Australia Post in a poor light.” She signs it with a flourish and uncrosses her legs: the case is not closed at all!

The Flea responds stating that the sick leave certificate, posted on 8th February was not received;
she states that the second one was received on 7th March “but its validity is yet to be decided.”
She further claims that you have been untruthful in your assertions but fails to say whether or
not she has been truthful in hers. Her letter loses much credibility towards the end: it is as if she
has ‘cut and pasted’ the first paragraph and added it to the end because she writes that she has
considered the Flea Fighter’s claims made on your behalf and now finds it appropriate to rescind
your dismissal and suspend you on full pay until an investigation into the matter is completed.
Aren’t you glad that you are a union member?

Construction unions have given notice they intend to take direct action against “sham” contracting.

At the same time they are calling for changes to the Fair Work Act to make the practice illegal and to impose penalties on employers to engage workers on these terms.

“Sham” contracting is the practice of treating workers as independent contractors in order to avoid paying them entitlements such as superannuation, overtime payments and workers compensation.

Employers using sham contracts also avoid paying payroll tax. A report just released by the Construction Forestry Mining and Engineering Union (CFMEU) estimates that up to $2.4 billion in tax revenue is being lost annually as a result of these arrangements.

The report, Race to the Bottom, has been released just before the first round table hearing of the Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC) inquiry into sham contracts. Unions are boycotting that inquiry in line with their opposition to the continuing existence of this relic of the Howard era.

But they have used the publicity surrounding the inquiry to launch their own initiatives.
The CFMEU says it intends to step up its activities including conducting audits of construction sites, pursuing entitlements for workers pressured into sham contracting arrangements and pressing Canberra to use its purchasing power to ensure federal projects don’t involve sham contracting.

The CEPU supports this campaign which is already relevant to the telecommunications industry and is likely to be increasingly necessary as the NBN roll-out gathers pace.

Fair Work Ombudsman to inquire into contractors
With sham contracting arrangements increasingly in the spotlight, the Fair Work Ombudsman has announced that it will target three industries – hair and beauty, cleaning and call centres – to assess the extent of the practice.

Genuine sub-contracting has traditionally existed in some industries such as construction and in trades like electrical and plumbing. But “sham” contracting -where workers are treated as contractors rather than employees simply to avoid employer obligations – has spread through many sectors of the economy in recent years along with other forms of insecure employment.

Ombudsman Nick Wilson said his office would conduct an audit of the industries to identify cases of sham contracting.

The Ombudsman is currently investigating 26 cases allegedly involving the practice after receiving hundreds of complaints last year.

Over the last financial year the courts finalised 60 sham contracting cases and imposed fines of over $2 million for sham contracting. Unions argue, however, that this is just the tip of the iceberg and that laws need to be tightened if the practice is to be eliminated.

The night shift staff from 8 Delivery Centres around Dandenong Letters Centre are currently moving into the Mail Centre.

Chris Spindler, the Delivery Organiser has worked hard on the issue to protect the interest of night-shift members and we have won some worthwhile concessions.

• Some members not wishing to move have remained at their local Delivery Centres to process            parcelsand Express Post mail.

• Some members have rosters that better suit their needs. The original rosters proposed by
  management had a different start time almost every night of the week! Some members who could     not handle their start times being brought forward two hours retained their original start times or   close to that.

• Four and possibly fi ve staff have accepted Voluntary Redundancy Packages (VRPs).

It is planned to ‘bed down’ the new changes for at least 4 weeks after the last night-sorters move in on 10 April 2011. Arrangements will then be reviewed. Management has agreed to standardize the hours of part-time staff if agreed. Currently there are seven different part-time shifts from 20 to 30 hours per week.

Chris will continue to be involved to ensure that members’ entitlements are protected. He can be contacted on: 9600 9100 or 0429 806 866.

The union is moving to the Federal Office from APRIL 11, 2011.

                        Our new address:
                              1st Floor
               139 Queensberry Street, Carlton.
           Other contact details remain the same.

                                                              Our phone:

AT A RECENT TRANSPORT JCC THE 2011 / 2012 PLANNED REDUCTIONS WERE OUTLINED AS FOLLOWS:

•  Improved Attendance                            2

• Depot Structural Review                         3

• LSE in DC’s                                         0.5

• Hubs Return To Work Program              1.0

• Closure of Nunawading AM                    1.0

• Hub Sunday Review                              0.2

• Transport Gross Reduction                 -10.2

• Growth                                             +3.0

• Eco Drive & Driver Assessment              +2.0

• Transport Total Reduction                   -5.2

The union is concerned with many of these projects on management’s wish-list and will be working with the local shop-stewards to push-back on the worst elements of these projects, especially the closure of Nunawading morning shift.

Contact Brendan Henley for further information on 9600 9100 or 0400 071 716.

KEY DIFFERENCES between current COMMONWEALTH OH&S ARRANGEMENTS and the DRAFT WORK HEALTH & SAFETY ACT (WHS Act)

THERE ARE MANY DIFFERENCES AND MEMBERS WHO WOULD LIKE A FULL BRIEFING SHOULD EXPLORE THE COMCARE WEBSITE  www.comcare.gov.au/the_comcare_scheme   OR RING THE UNION OFFICE FOR FURTHER WRITTEN INFORMATION.

In the last e-bulletin we reported on Comcare being asked to review three recommendations made by CEPU expert consultants on Separate Bundle Delivery (SBD) on the Honda CT110 motorcycle.

At a meeting on 2 March with Comcare, the CEPU and Australia Post it was agreed to extend the terms of reference of Comcare’s review to include a review of SBD on all modes of delivery including walk buggies, bicycle and tricycle rounds.

This a welcome development as the same CEPU expert consultants who provided the report on SBD for motorcycles have also prepared a report on SBD for the walk buggies, bicycle and tricycle modes of delivery. This report also raises serious concerns about SBD using these modes of delivery.

In a separate development on SBD the CEPU NSW Branch has organised a consultative process involving branch officials, delivery members undertaking SBD walk buggy delivery, and senior state managers of Post. At these meetings the delivery members performing SBD by walk buggy have been able to provide direct feedback and raise their concerns. This consultative process has resulted visits to two delivery facilities with visits to occur to a further two facilities in the next few weeks. Branch officials have described the described the discussions at the meetings as being very productive.

Further information on the Comcare review and the consultative process that has commenced in NSW will be provided in future e-bulletins.

On 15th March the CEPU will be appearing in Fair Work Australia (FWA) to propose a new modernised enterprise award to cover Telstra employees.

The move is a response to Telstra’s attempts to have all its current enterprise awards scrapped and replaced by the general telecoms industry award, the Telecommunications Services Award (TSA) together with other relevant modernised industry awards.

As explained in earlier E-bulletins, part of Labor’s Fair Work agenda has been the modernisation of all awards, including enterprise-specific ones like those in Telstra.

The modernisation process can result in either a set of new modernised enterprise awards or a move to general industry awards.

Neither result will have an immediate impact on members’ conditions, which have been secured through the recent Telstra Enterprise Agreement (EA). But the new award will set a benchmark for the next round of EA negotiations so it is important that key conditions such as the 36 3/4 hour week are preserved in it.

Both Telstra’s and the CEPU’s applications are scheduled to heard by Deputy Vice President Lawler on 15th March. Members will be advised of progress in this important case.

Some time back Australia Post unilaterally determined that new employees in eLetters would be employed in accordance with the Sprintpak classification levels rather than the Mail Officer classification that had previously been applied to eLetter employees. It goes without saying that the rate of pay in the Sprintpak classification level 1 is lower than the Mail Officer rate. However under the Sprintpak classification an employee who is classified at level 1 and is required to drive and operate a fork lift truck for a day or part of a day must be paid an allowance. Further, an employee classified in Level 1 who is required to adjust machinery on any day must also be paid an allowance.

Now Australia Post’s eLetters management has unilaterally decided not to pay the allowance relating to machinery adjustment. Why not, you might ask? Good question and one the CEPU has put to eLetter’s management who have dragged their feet on the issue, promising a response last week, have not responded to date.

It would seem that eLetter’s management is still seeking a determination from the Post lawyers on what constitutes engagement with machinery for their own convenience but as far as the CEPU is concerned the words in the Sprintak Division Agreement and the Fair Work Agreement and their intent in relation to the payment of allowances are clear and we will not tolerate attempts to rewrite these Agreements.

As many as 1000 customer contact jobs, largely in regional Australia, are likely to be lost as a result of changes to Telstra call centre contracts.
Outsourcing companies Salmat and Vertex have both announced that they have lost their contracts with Telstra in the course of a new round of tendering it is undertaking.

Salmat provides customer contact services to Telstra from a number of call centres in urban and regional Australia, some of which are solely dependent on the Telstra contract for their viability.

The company said call centres in Wagga Wagga (NSW), Bundaberg (Qld) and Geelong (Vic) would all have to close unless new contracts could be secured.

The Wagga Wagga centre employs 142 people, Bundaberg 107 and Geelong 163. A further 330 jobs will be lost from Salmat’s Surry Hills branch in Sydney.

Vertex’s operations in East Bentleigh, Victoria, employ 750 people, some 250 of whom are now at risk of losing their jobs.

Telstra has made no announcement about its plans for this work, but unions have warned that it is likely many if not all of these jobs will go overseas. Telstra has confirmed that at least one of the companies shortlisted in the tender is based outside Australia.

CEPU Communications Division President, Len Cooper, said the union was disappointed with the Telstra decisions.

"It's part of a restructure for the NBN because Telstra wants to cut costs before it moves to the new network where margins will be much tighter for them," he said.

"Telstra is just focusing on its bottom line at the expense of jobs in regional areas in Australia."

National approach needed

The move once again highlights the vulnerability of call centre workers and others whose jobs can readily be transferred off-shore in the digital era. It also suggests how public subsidies to companies in the form of federal, state and local government support are not in themselves enough to protect workers and local economies against such moves.

Salmat was one of a number of telco-related companies which received state and local government support to set up in regional areas during the last decade. AAPT, whose Bendigo (Vic) call centre has haemorrhaged jobs since it was set up in 2000, was another.

The CEPU is opposed to the off-shoring of Australian jobs and believes that a national approach, including federal legislation that creates disincentives to off-shoring, is needed to counteract this trend.

The CEPU has received continuous complaints from a number of delivery facilities about exposure to excessive noise levels since the installation of the new Solystics sequencing machine.

Australia Post claim that sound pressure levels around the machine average 67.8dB and that this is lower than the threshold of 85dB where hearing protection is recommended.

However the posties whose frames are closest to the machine have reported headaches, earaches, ringing in the ears and migraines which they believe are triggered by machine noise. With a second machine soon to be installed the posties are very apprehensive about exposure to even higher noise levels.

The complaints have been recorded in P400s incident reports and will be followed up by the CEPU with management. Clearly noise abatement measures are needed before the start up of the second machine.

In the meantime the union has requested that Australia Post provide documentation to the union attesting to the machine’s compliance with all relevant legislative requirements, Australian Standards and appropriate international standards, in particular the Commonwealth OHS Act and Regulations.

The CEPU continues to be engaged with Telstra over the new payroll system introduced last year.

The CEPU and other Telstra unions met with Telstra for the second time this year on 10th March to discuss progress on addressing the many problems that the new system has created.

These problems have included incorrect taxation deductions, over and under payments, incorrect penalty/overtime payments and annual leave loading errors.

Telstra advised in January that it was taking steps to develop customised payslips that would provide more information and be more user- friendly.

It is also developing a comprehensive policy that will cover the handling of over/under payments and will require Telstra to give prior notice to employees before it makes adjustments in these areas.

The CEPU will have input into this policy before it is finalised.

At the most recent meeting, the CEPU also raised the question of how sick leave and RDOs are recorded, following concerns raised by members about these issues.

Telstra has reported that the initiatives taken so far have led to a decline in the number of payroll queries and complaints they are receiving. However, the CEPU is still keen to hear from members about any difficulties they are still experiencing.

Members in this situation should contact their state branches and the information will then be fed back into the national-level discussions with Telstra.

A new Delivery round hazard profile procedure standardising the process for identifying, assessing and controlling safety risks on mail delivery rounds s to be introduced in Australia Post workplaces. It is intended to replace all existing delivery round assessment methods currently in use. The new procedure applies to all letter delivery rounds and all delivery modes.

Perhaps the biggest issues raised by the CEPU with the new procedure relate to greater involvement of HSRs in the process and where there is no agreement on the risk rating and/or the risk controls then the manager must contact the local union delegate and/or the union office for discussion on the areas of disagreement.

We await Australia Post’s response on these issues.

The CEPU has made representations to Telstra about the impact of the Reach restructure on its members.

In January, Telstra announced that it would reorganise its international business which since 2000 it has conducted through Reach, a joint venture with Hong Kong-based PCCW.

Under those arrangements, Telstra’s international cable and gateway assets were placed in Reach.
Now Telstra and PCCW have divided up the majority of the joint venture’s assets which in Telstra’s case will now be managed through Telstra International. As a result some 300 former Reach staff will be transferred to Telstra International.

The CEPU has been in contact with Telstra to ensure that this transfer does not have any adverse consequences for members’ conditions, in particular the banding levels they are being assigned to in Telstra.

Any former Reach members with these or related concerns should contact their state branch. The union will be report on any further discussions with Telstra on this matter.

The Australian union movement is gearing up for a major campaign against insecure employment.

The ACTU says that too many Australian workers do not have secure jobs that provide them with certainty in their daily lives:

• Over 2 million Australian workers are without paid leave entitlements;
  

• More than 1 million workers have been casually employed in the current job for more than a year; and
  

• Out of 1 million “independent” contractors 43% have no authority over their work.
  

The union movement decided last year that it needed to tackle this issue with a campaign that promoted workers rights to a safe work environment, fair and predictable pay and hours of work and access to important conditions such as annual leave, personal leave and overtime and penalty payments.

Unions believe that the Working Australia Census which will be conducted this year will provide a focus for this campaign so as to put the issue of insecure employment firmly on the national political agenda.

The CEPU and other Telstra unions have met again with Telstra to discuss how its $100 million government grant for NBN-related training will be used.

The CEPU has been concerned to ensure that it had a role in oversighting the training programme. The union wants to make sure that any of its members affected by the NBN project have the best possible opportunities for retraining.

The union also wants that training to provide long-term work opportunities for members, not only the shorter-term ones associated with the NBN build.

The details of the agreement between Telstra and the government have not yet been finalised. However, it is likely to include recognition of the CEPU as a key stakeholder in the training programme and provide for regular consultation between Telstra, the CEPU and other unions about its implementation.

The programme will be rolled out over three years, with the greater part of the training being based on nationally endorsed training packages and related qualifications.

Further meetings will be held once the training agreement is finalised and the overarching agreement between Telstra and NBN Co has been put in place.

NBN training must be national priority, says CEPU

Skills related to both the construction and use of the National Broadband Network should be put high on the national training agenda the CEPU has said.

The comments were made in the Communication Division’s submission to a House of Representatives inquiry into the role and potential of the NBN. The inquiry will focus on the role that superfast broadband can play in the delivery of health, education and other social services.

But the union pointed out that the government’s vision depended on Australia having the skills to maximise the NBN opportunity.

The CEPU argued that both NBN network construction and operation skills and digital economy skills more broadly should be recognised as “critical skills” for the Australian economy at this point of time.

The union is concerned that without a coordinated national effort in these areas, business will increasingly use temporary measures such as 457 visas to meet the skills shortfall.

This would run counter to what the union believes should be the long-term goal of building a stable national skills base to support productivity and innovation within the digital economy.

Optus CEO, Paul O’Sullivan, has put forward a number of controversial proposals for the future management and governance of the National Broadband Network (NBN).

In line with Optus’ increasing concern that the NBN may become “another lumbering monopoly”, O’Sullivan suggested that its management could be put out to tender either on a national basis or even state-by-state to keep it efficient.

He also proposed that an independent oversight body for the NBN be established to ensure that it remained focussed on its customers’ needs – not the needs of the government of the day or NBN Co executives.

O’ Sullivan seems to have forgotten that it is the intention of the federal government to privatise NBN Co once the project is complete and neither of these proposals is likely to appeal to private investors.

But even in the shorter-term the regular, comprehensive turnover of management and operations that O’Sullivan appears to envisage would obviously be highly disruptive to the NBN Co business.

As for tendering management out on a state-by-state basis to “drive greater competition”, it is hard to see on what terms these state NBN Cos would compete against each other, especially given the very different terrains and demographics – and hence cost structures - of the Australian states and territories.

Moreover competition on price, if this is what is envisaged, would surely run counter to the government’s vision of uniform wholesale pricing across the whole of Australia.

It is hard to regard these recent suggestions from Optus as realistic proposals. What they do signal, however, is a growing unease in the telecommunications industry about the impact of the NBN project on current businesses and business models.

As the industry enters this unknown territory, such voices are set to grow louder.